


#51: "Grave"

by theskywasblue



Series: 100 days, 100 prompts [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Drabble Collection, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 08:19:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9595961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theskywasblue/pseuds/theskywasblue
Summary: There's a stone with his name on it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part 3 of 100 days, 100 Prompts

There’s a stone with his name on it, though it takes a while to find. He keeps catching glimpses of names he thinks he knows; but that’s not unusual. These days, there’s almost nothing in the world that doesn’t carry some spark of recognition, or some pain at the absence of it.

There are very few other living people in the cemetery, but it’s still strangely comforting that they pay him almost no attention; assuming he too is in some state of mourning that is inherently private (and in a way, he is.) This is one of the few places he’s been in recent weeks where he hasn’t felt exposed, or hunted. Still, he keeps his head down, his hands in his pockets, his hood up.

The headstone is distractingly ordinary, bearing the name he still doesn’t quite own. He shapes the words, lets them sit, soundless, just behind his teeth, and they taste like sucking on pennies, like cordite stuck in his throat, like the blood from a bitten tongue.

He wonders what they buried. Maybe a set of dog tags, a jacket, a pair of boots? Will they dig it up now, knock the headstone over, chisel his name off?

They shouldn’t, he thinks. 

James Buchanan Barnes is dead.


End file.
